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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least a track including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished presence: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the reality that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.